Two Poems

by Román Antopolsky

[if anyone knew what letter life begins with, immense]

if anyone knew what letter life begins with, immense
sheets would follow with just such character on with no
end—like numbers over opałka, which pursue further than
him or maybe not. who knows. sporadically sounds are minced
to extract one or a few anew but regularly all is old when
thought of it first, until perpetual. then changes occur to
what's old. but notice not to what was. what was? rather is—
so it to have been. both the same aim as differently as
it sounds. and both, passed by, are and not there.
was it the sun rising up before rising what made encountering
him this time an event unseen, the headless body of his—
roaming near minute distant stars? compelled to keep,
say, aloof from it since otherwise his light'll
prevent him from seeing and knowing it never to be
retrieved he left it astray and followed his cycle.
not unknown among humans and immortals such
an unepic quest this case was seen and held onto
by many. yet out of the thickness of the shape of
this transit i manage to see in awe a groundhog
nearby the star, to whom he talks. i overhear only the end:
"get a notebook and firewood, that's what your goal is."
to my dismay the rodent knows no english and only
of the last two words makes something of: gólas, which
translates as voice: it sings, on the spot. the sun
brightens up and adds: "son, soon comes" and
i miss the rest; the light becomes too bright; other
things come to be closer now.
and the sky is in joy. shapes are received. time is
taken at face value. every
animal's a good sport. holding all on
to knowing the body that roams never
was and has been.

[every time i step outside, out of my home-side]

every time i step outside, out of my home-side
into, say, the yard, i see the night,
and then the sky. if it only were the other
way around, but it seems not possible.
it's not a color. you need stars first in
order to see the eve of the day to come
but you'll see night first.
same at daylight.
days will have begun before sun.
nothing dies, or even lives, without a hint
of forthcoming.
say night's gloves,
say shadows' mittens.
a hand, veiled, reaches
to you, the nakedness, dressed,
drains what's not there yet into
you. it's you.
but what does forthcome into you, or
does come to?
say a day at bay?